My Name Is
by Aphonic
Summary: And I guess, this isn’t the happily ever after everyone hope stories will have.
1. My Name Is

Chapter One: My Name Is

I guess I could start this account as "my name is" but that would seem like I am trying to be them and trust me, I am far from it. You may know who I am talking about because in this world, they are characters in a book. Nothing but fiction. But there are other worlds out there. Other than a few, like me, can travel between.

They, the them that I am trying not to be, were five kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were given the power to morph into animals. So they aptly called themselves Animorphs.

I'm afraid that I have ruined the natural order of their world and now I am stuck. During the three years that Jake Berenson and his crew fought The One, I experimented with traveling. And when his crew returned, I returned with Rachel from a time before.

Tobias came back and forgot about me screwing with time because he was so happy that Rachel was alive. Marco and Jeanne Gerard came back. Prince Aximili came back. And Jake, if you could still call him that, came back. But Rachel couldn't stay in a world that she was supposed to be dead in. I returned her, with no memory of the world she visited but just the fact that what happens, should happen, and left the remnants of her for the surviving Animorphs to deal with.

I left that world and went to my own life but time always goes slower when you are there. You can tell a story that took hours in minutes. A year passed and I wasn't the sentimental 15 years old I was. I doubt sweet sixteen would be the right phrase.

But one day- I am still not sure how and neither is Prince Aximili- I got an email from him, that something was there and they needed me. And because I had been so helpful last time, I went. That was sarcasm, by the way. Just to find out that it had been seventeen years for my one year.

My name is Riley Shay Sinclair and I am helping the next generation of Animorphs on a different type of an adventure. We weren't fighting parasites but we were trying to fight a force that killed through dreams.


	2. Dreamings

Chapter Two: Dreamings

Riley stood at the doorstep of the extravagant house belonging to Marco Peña and his wife, Jeanne Gerard-Peña. She raised her hand to do a simple movement such as ring the doorbell, but she paused. Did she really want to see them and have them know what she did? And not just to this world but to others? She couldn't keep those kinds of secrets for very long. She took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

"If anything goes wrong, I can just…" Riley spoke out loud, twisting the emerald ring around her finger. Just what? Travel out and leave everyone behind? Leave them to-

The door opened to a handsome, taller version of Marco who was around her age. "Can I help you?"

"Is Marco Peña here?" Riley asked. Prince Aximili had warned her about how long it has been and some things had changed. When she took Rachel back, Cassie and Ronnie had Jonathon and she was pregnant. And of course, there was Lee.

"Yes, would you like me to get him?" the boy asked, carefully.

"Tell him that it is Riley Sinclair and.." Riley paused, debating on what she should tell him. "And Prince Aximili told me to meet him here."

"Oh, you're her." The boy moved aside and held the door open but did not invite her in. She walked in, confused if she should be walking in or staying outside. The boy walked away, closing the door, and Riley followed him. Down a hallway with no-personality paintings and into a room where she nearly gasped.

Jake was sitting next to a boy identical to him when she first met him. The ex-leader of the Animorphs had always had old-man eyes but now he just looked beaten. The boy looked exactly like Jake except for the eyes, which were still young looking and optimistic.

On the same couch was another boy, appropriately distanced from the Berensons. On the couch across from them, sat Jeanne and two teenagers, one the boy from the door, and on the final couch was Cassie's family. Marco and Prince Aximili focused on a computer and a hawk was perched uneasily.

Riley smiled at the hawk, "It's good to see you again, Tobias."

>How are the other worlds, Riley?> Tobias asked in thought-speak. Tobias and Prince Aximili were the only Animorphs she had gotten along with- possibly because they were all outcasts. >Or did you take a break from making everywhere an Utopian paradise?>

Riley looked down. She knew Tobias wasn't happy at the end, when she had to take Rachel away from him. Again. But Tobias didn't know how horrible her last expedition ended. "Yeah. I'm sorry but it's been so long and last time I was here, you guys were barely older than me."

>Well, Jake and his son, Alex, and there's Lee. You haven't seen Lee since he was just barely six months old.> Tobias paused. Lee was half and half of Rachel and Tobias. Rachel's beauty and Tobias' goofy handsomeness made a very rugged and awkwardly attractive teenager. >Cassie and Ronnie with Jack and Rachel. And Jeanne and David and Phoebe.>

"Wow. Has this much time really passed?" Riley asked out loud. Receiving no answer, she continued. "So what's going on? Tobias? Prince Aximili?"

Aximili walked over and did a sort of bow and Riley, by impulse, bowed back, blushing at the treatment. He spoke, >There have been a few people related to the Yeerk War killed. Through dreams.>

"And I'm the only one that can travel there." Riley shook her head. "And I'm supposed to take some has-beens to fight?"

>Riley.> Tobias warned.

>No, we were hoping that you could take some of the children.> Aximili said. >Alex, Rachel, Lee, and David.>

"So, the son of Jake Berenson, Cassie's daughter who happens to be named Rachel, some smartass kid of Marco's, and the mess I caused." Riley repeated. "And the only one who has probably seen a dead person in this screwed up group is me."

"We need you, Riley." Marco said from the computer. "It was hard enough talking Jeanne and Cassie into letting Rachel and Davy go."

Riley just shook her head and frowned, "It's dangerous enough for me to travel but to take fours kids into a place as unpredictable as dreams. It's suicide. Especially if I die, they die."

Cassie started crying silently and Ronnie held her, whispering, "It will be fine, Cass" over and over again. Jake shifted uncomfortable and Jeanne hugged David and Phoebe. The children looked just as worried.

"Traveling isn't peaches and crème, especially between dreams." Riley said and shifted her weight. "And you want me to go between people's nightmares, people who might have been trapped in their own minds for years and saw the chaos that the Yeerks created, and rescue them from being killed. Do you have any clue how dangerous those nightmares will be?"

>We know, Riley, but if we don't stop him, we're next.> Tobias said, almost pleading.

"Do birds dream?" Riley joked and bit her lip, "I wanted to be done after I screwed up your life once. I can't fix anything."

>We need you to, Riley.> Tobias said, simply. Riley looked around the group and shook her head. >Riley, Mikhail was killed last week.>

Riley narrowed her eyes, "You were just playing me! You were just using me, Tobias! Not giving me a fucking choice in the end since you knew how far I would go for Mikhail!"

>We are sorry but we did not want to tell you unless we had to.> Aximili said and switched to private thought-speak. >I know you loved Mikhail and I did not want you to hurt. But he was killed for being an innocent boy captured by the Yeerks years ago.>

"Fine, I'll do it." Riley hissed, angry at everyone.

Author's Note: I am sorry but for some reason, I can't do " "s so if you know how I can change it, please tell me. Thanks for understanding.


	3. Complaints

Chapter Three: Complaints

Riley stood on an empty plain with black grass and dead flowers. Just the entrance to numerous worlds. To her left were Alex and Rachel. Riley wasn't sure if they ever knew how much Jake and Cassie loved each other during the first war or if Rachel would ever know how much she had to live up to, being named after the reason the Yeerks were defeated. To her right were Lee and David, "Here we are- the edge of insanity."

"Isn't that a bit over-dramatic?" David asked and rolled his eyes. His voice was accented slightly like his mother, pronouncing his I's like E's. It sounded like, "Eesn't that a beet ovair-dramateec?"

Riley knew that Marco and Jeanne wanted to spend some time in France, visiting her family when she left. One more thing she had to leave. "Not if you have seen what I have." Riley whispered and looked at Lee, who was named after her. "I have to travel into whoever's mind to follow him through dreams. It's gonna hurt like hell and be even creepier. There will be every one of his thoughts, his victim's thoughts, and whoever he is after thoughts. We will be in a mind of a murderer."

"How will it hurt?" Rachel asked, timidly. She was tanned, sharing mostly her mother's look, and had green eyes, or emerald, like her father. "I mean, don't you do all the work?"

"You'll get to feel the same thing as me, don't worry. And dreams hurt the worse. It is every nightmare, every pain, every fear being shoved into you." Riley said and put her hands together. "So get ready to be pureed, chilluns."

Riley closed her eyes and the ring glowed. The group was pulled apart, through everything, and thrown into a dark room. Riley stumbled and looked at Rachel and David, who had collapsed onto the floor.

Lee grabbed Riley's arm and steadied her. Alex helped Rachel up and David stood, embarrassed. Lee spoke first, "What now?"

"This is his next victim's dream." Riley answered. "So we find him or the victim and stop it from happening. Any problems?"

"Yeah. How?" Rachel asked, bringing up the obvious question everyone wanted to avoid.

"Since I have no clue if this thing is human, beast, or alien, I am not sure how. But if any of you kids want to spring an idea at me, go ahead." Riley replied.

"You know what, you are barely older than some of us and you are younger than Lee so why don't you stop calling us kids?" Rachel hissed. She placed her hands on her hips and stood there. She certainly had more of Ronnie's personality than Cassie's inside of her when it came to some things.

"I was born in 1989. Do we need to compare birthdates to realize who is actually older?" Riley glared at the girl. "Besides, experience rules over actual age."

"How about we stop the catfights and find whoever we have to save?" David asked and turned around to see the gruesome image of the Yeerk pool. People were being held under and screams came from the cages that held humans. But some of the cages were silent and that memory, that nightmarish piece, was the scariest. "Oh hell."

"Pretty damn close." Riley turned around and whispered. She looked at the faces of the four kids, who never had to see someone be tortured, taken, or killed before this day. She shivered, remembering her own nightmare down here. "I don't know what to do."

Lee placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it, "We'll make it."

Riley smiled, "As the real Rachel would say, let's do it."

"Do what?" Alex asked. "We don't know who we have to save or who is really the bad guy. We don't know anything and what- we are supposed hop out of the shadows and find a way to save someone?"

"He's got a good point." David chided in.

"Some heroes you are." Riley exclaimed quietly. "Whoever's dream this is will look different from the other people. Different color, more vibrant, something like that."

The others nodded; not wanting to start anymore fights and followed Riley around the shadows, gaping at the people. The place smelled of pain and fear and it sounded worse. Nothing that anyone should have to see. Rachel instinctively gripped the person closest to her, which happened to be Alex.

Starting all over, Riley thought, and looked at the group- thinking back to when she met the Animorphs, who weren't really the Animorphs anymore, and remembered the looks that Jake still gave Cassie. The looks between Tobias and Rachel before she had to take her back. They didn't compare to the looks between Cassie and Ronnie- a love that had never been through what they others had.

"What about that one?" Lee whispered and pointed to a girl who wasn't the dull color like all the rest. "Is that her?"

"Madison." Riley looked and gasped. Mikhail's younger sister, who had been a Controller during the war. Although Riley knew time had passed and Mikhail and Madison would be older, Madison looked the same age, if not younger, as if she could only be that age and in that war. "That is Mikhail's little sister."

"Weird." Alex noted, watching the girl. "They are both connected to you."

Riley, Lee, Rachel, and David all looked at Alex, realizing what no one had before. Riley spoke, "Who was killed before Mikhail?"

David looked up, remembering and frowned, "Shannen, age 49, ex-Controller and Jess, age 18, fought the Yeerks, somehow."

"Fuck." Riley said. "It's not about the Yeerks at all."


	4. Revealings

Chapter Four: Revealings

"What are you talking about?" Rachel said in a panicked voice. "Of course it's about the Yeerks- all of the people killed so far were ex-Controllers or fought the Yeerks. It's just coincidence that you knew two of them."

"Try all of them." Riley whispered.

Lee shook his head, "Why didn't dad or I catch that?"

"Catch what?" Alex asked. Unlike his father, he didn't bother to take charge. "I'm not seeing the connections here."

"Shannen, age 49, is Shannen Sinclair. My mother." Riley hissed. "People can exist in one or more worlds, unless something happens, or unless you are a Traveler like myself. So my mother existed in my time but she also existed in your time- only without me because I can't exist in two times."

"Kind of like my mom?" Lee asked, quietly, hesitant to bring up Rachel.

"Because I took her from a time before this and brought her to one that she had existed in but died, she couldn't stay in this one." Riley sighed. "I'll try to explain it but even I don't understand everything.

"There are an infinite number of worlds out there. All coinciding at once. In some worlds, others are just stories- like in my original time, your parents are just characters in a book. But since all of these worlds and times and whatever you call them do exist at once, some people can cross into them. Some are just born with them and others happen to go through a doorway. Anything making sense?"

Rachel raised a hand, then put it down, embarrassed. "So, what about the second person- Jess or Jesse or whatever? Did you know him?"

"He's a Traveler." Riley whispered. "Or he was- we were friends and he is the one who told me about your world but he swore he would never come back after he saw what the Yeerks had done."

"Then how did he die in our time?" Alex asked.

"We have to get out of here." Lee said, his voice panicked now, and looked into the Yeerk pool. "Right now."

"Not quite." A deep voice growled and an arm wrapped around Riley's neck. Her eyes went wide as the others faced the shadowed figure holding her hostage. "I am so glad that you brought others, Riley. I wasn't actually thinking about killing the Animorphs or their children but while they are here, why not?

"And while we are here, I'll take this to hold on to." The man grabbed Riley's hand and pulled off her emerald ring. "That is the only way you can travel without dying, right? I always knew Shannen would make you weak."

"Who the hell are you?" Alex asked and stepped forward, finally showing a little bit of Jake in him. David pulled Rachel behind the three boys against the wall and she struggled to look through them. "And what do you think are doing?"

"I think I am going to kill Riley." He grinned in the darkness and his white teeth shone through it. "And for the who the hell am I part, you can call me Casen Hause but Riley can call me dad." He waved an arm and the dream disappeared but the scenery stayed. "Since I got you, I don't need to kill Madison anymore."

"You can't kill your own daughter." Alex hissed and thought about his history books- the history his father would never tell him. How Rachel had killed her own cousin.

"I have before." Casen grinned. He looked at Riley. "The world we are from is so boring, so normal, Riley, and you should thank me for giving you the power to explore the others. So after I killed Shannen in that world, I moved on to another one. It was much more fascinating because people had other abilities besides traveling but I couldn't let them live either."

"You sick bastard." Riley growled and narrowed her eyes. "You aren't my father. You never were."

"Don't interrupt me, Riley." Casen warned and squeezed his arm around her neck tighter. "As I was saying, in this new world, I couldn't be the best if everyone else had some sort of abilities. So I started the panic that has killed thousands so far. Witches, just like in Salem. Then I remembered you and your powers and how there were travelers in all worlds. And I knew they would somehow end up in mine."

"So you killed Jess and others like him?" Riley gasped.

"Don't be so shocked," Casen said. "You know how it is to take someone's life. Or have you so soon forgotten your own chaos in Ydobon? Do these four know that a murderer is leading them around? Do they know that you helped one human kill another? Do they know that you killed the only one who knew about it?" Casen gripped her shoulders and spun her around and then pushed her back. She stumbled and caught her balance, glaring at the man. "You are just like me, Riley. You should really just admit it."

Before another word could be spoken, the three boys rushed Casen. He fell to the side and into the Yeerk pool that was only a memory. Lee grabbed Riley's hand and the group ran out of the pool, not knowing where they would end up.

They reached a street with people without realizing it and looked around for Casen. Alex rested against a wall next to a store with televisions in its display window, "I don't see him."

"Where are we and what is going on?" Rachel asked and sat down against the wall. She looked up at the others. "Can't we just leave?"

Riley shook her head, "That ring is the only reason that I don't die when I travel. I can't go without it."


	5. Histories

Chapter Five: Histories

"What are you saying- we are stuck here with that psycho?" Rachel screeched. Alex sat down and wrapped an arm around the girl, whispering the comforting words that just aren't comforting in a time like this.

Riley bit her lip and looked around. "Well, I could get you guys back alright."

"No." Lee said. "We aren't going unless you can get back. We can find that guy and get the ring back. In case you forgot, we are the children of the Animorphs- the heroes in our world."

"Yay! Let's go on some suicide mission." David said, sarcastically. Again his accent came through and it sounded like, "Yay! Leet's go on semm suicide meesion." "But first, I'd like to know what's really going on. What was he talking about?"

Rachel looked up, tears still in her eyes. "Was it true?"

"Yes." Riley whispered and looked down at the ground, scraping the tip of her shoe against the cement. "After I left here the first time, I met this kid who said he needed to get to someone's dreams. He offered me quite a bit of money and like in any world, greed has its way of getting ahead of integrity.

"It turns out that he pulled these other people into this girl's dreams just to torture her and murder her. And her best friend started looking into it and I went into the future of my own world, where she had found out that I, only by name, had helped that psycho kill her friend.

"So I went up to her, lied about my name, and told her I could take her to the place where her friend was killed."

"Only you couldn't." Lee injected in.

"Not at all- her friend had died in her very own dream. That place didn't exist anymore. But I took her to this world I had found called Ydobon which I think is basically limbo and I let her die.

"I went back to my normal time- determined to forget about how I murdered another human being just to save my own ass. I murdered someone with a husband and child. But it doesn't matter what she had, because no matter what, I murdered her."

"Let's just find a way out of here." Lee said and turned around and gasped.

Rachel and Alex darted up while David and Riley turned around to see a rather angry Casen Hause standing on the sidewalk with a gun. He shook his head, "The only person who has eluded me like you have is that stupid witch. Now I have to get back to my place because I have some more people to murder."

"You sick fuck!" Riley yelled.

"Now, now, words don't hurt." Casen said and raised the gun, switching it between each of the group members. "But guns do."

Casen grinned and pointed the gun at Lee, pulling the trigger before any reaction could be given. Lee's hands flew up to his stomach as he clutched the gunshot wound and stumbled backwards with a surprise look before being caught by David and Alex.

Riley gasped and glared at the man, speechless.

Casen shrugged and turned around, starting to walk away. He paused, looked back over his shoulder and said, "You know what you have to do, Riley. And tell your mom hi." He disappeared into the crowd who were just pieces of his play.

Riley turned back around and kneeled down next to Lee. She forced a smile, "Everybody hang on cause this is going to be one rockin' ride."

"Don't." Lee said, breathlessly. "You'll die."

"If I don't, you will." Riley said and placed her hand Lee's knee. She grinned as everyone grabbed onto each other. Rachel nearly suffocating Alex and he had one hand on Lee's shoulder and one hand on Riley's shoulder. David looked down at the girl and placed one hand on her other shoulder. "Somebody do the honors."

Rachel grinned, a shaky grin that could turn into a frown at any time, "Let's do it."


	6. Endings

Chapter Six: Endings

My name is Lee.

I am the son of Tobias and Rachel. I am named after a girl who caused so much chaos and in the end, saved my life and took her own.

Riley, my cousin Alex, David, Rachel (Cassie's daughter, not my mother), and I went to a dream that turned into a nightmare. And to save my life as well as Alex's, David's, and Rachel's, Riley took us back, knowing she would be killed.

When we got back, I was rushed to the nearest hospital and I survived with a scar on my torso to remember it by. When we got back, Riley wasn't there.

Three days later, we had a funeral for her.

It was simple enough- my dad and I, Cassie and Ronnie with Jonathon and Rachel, Jake with Alex, Marco and Jeanne with David and Phoebe, and Ax. There were a few others- I didn't know she had fought the Yeerks- but Madison was there with her husband, someone named Layla who said Riley saved her twice, and a man who said he just knew her by name.

I looked at all of the ex-Animorphs and finally realized a small part of what they had to go through. Why my dad never spoke of my mother. Why Jake still refused to look at Cassie. Why Ax never seemed to notice the scars on his own body.

And then there were the kids and lucky for Jack and Phoebe that they may never have to see even the small amount we did and still know that we didn't even do anything.

Riley was dead, Casen escaped, and he might still go on, trying to kill Travelers.

And I guess, this isn't the happily ever after everyone hope stories will have.

Author's Note: This story is connected to Become Death, Prelude to Death, and The Essence of Her Dreams from my FictionPress account. There is a story in the making called Ydobon (which was started before this one) with Lee.


End file.
